


Quarantined

by pipermca



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Cosmic Rust, Gen, Pandemic - Freeform, Quarantine, Quarantine boredom, Soundwave is a tired dad just trying to get his work done, Working from Home, handwavy medical stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23367922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipermca/pseuds/pipermca
Summary: Even when the Decepticons are forced into quarantine to stop the spread of a deadly disease, Soundwave still has work to do.If only his cassettes would keep it down...
Comments: 29
Kudos: 119
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	Quarantined

**Author's Note:**

> After the week I had at work, I was in desperate need for some fluffy domestic quarantine fic, and this just fell out of my head. :) Enjoy!

" **For the last time...** Frenzy, Rumble: will stop fighting. **Now.** "

There was a sudden silence as Soundwave's voice cut across his quarters, louder than the hubbub that had been created by the two cassettes. They froze, still locked together in their wrestling match, their visors fixated on Soundwave.

Ah. Perhaps Soundwave **had** said that a bit louder than his usual volume.

After taking a moment to collect himself, Soundwave moderated his tone and spoke again. "Soundwave: must continue working. Monitoring communications and security: vital. Concentration: important." He gestured at the workstation behind him and added, "Decepticons: depending on Soundwave."

"They've always depended on you, boss," Rumble said, pulling his arms free of the hold Frenzy had been placing on him. He made a show of brushing non-existent grit from his plating. "The Decepticons would be lost without ya."

"Yeah, they would," chimed in Frenzy. He stood up and crossed his arms, throwing a baleful glance at Rumble. "But we'll be quieter. Sorry 'bout that, boss."

Soundwave nodded gratefully. "Situation: difficult for all. Cooperation: appreciated." He started to turn back to his console, then paused. "Query: reading material finished already?"

"Nah," said Rumble. He bent over and grabbed a datapad that had been discarded on the floor. "We were just trying to, uh, decide who got to read the latest _X-Men_ issue first."

"I'll look at the June issue of _Guns & Ammo_, I guess," Frenzy said. He didn't sound happy about it, but he picked up another datapad. "The cover said something about Dirty Harry."

As Rumble and Frenzy started negotiating (at a lower, less physical volume this time) which titles they would each read next, Soundwave turned around to face his desk and started scanning his monitors once more.

Surprisingly, everything on the _Nemesis_ was quiet, given the circumstances. The bridge of the ship was empty, as was the mess hall. The medical bay was closed off per Hook's instructions, and Soundwave could see Long Haul standing guard just inside the door. The hallways on the two decks that housed both combiner teams were empty, proving that the teams were following Hook's and Lord Megatron's explicit instructions to stay in their quarters. Even the corridors of the air barracks were empty.

His last monitor showed the hallway outside of Lord Megatron's quarters. It was quiet and still. Soundwave knew that his leader was unhappy with the situation, but he had wisely heeded Hook's advice and issued the quarantine order.

It was **imperative** that no one leave their quarters until further notice.

They didn't know where the rust plague had come from. Mixmaster had suggested that the spores had originated in the microscopic debris left in the atmosphere after the last meteor shower. Starscream, on the other hand, pointed the blame at the ancient artifact that Lord Megatron had forced his troops to dig up from an isolated spot in the arid interior of Australia.

All anyone knew was that three days after the last battle with the Autobots, Breakdown had started complaining about stiff joints. Hook examined him, found nothing obviously wrong, gave him a prescription lubricant, and sent him on his way.

A day later, Drag Strip went to the medical bay with the same complaint. Hook had harrumphed about the Stunticons not taking care of themselves, gave him the same treatment that he had to Breakdown, and sent Drag Strip away as well.

A few hours later, Motormaster dragged a screaming Breakdown into the bay. The Lamborghini's leg was riddled with rust, and it was making visible progress up the plating of his shin. Later, Soundwave overheard Hook say that if Motormaster had delayed even by another hour in bringing Breakdown to medical, he might have lost his leg entirely.

Once Hook knew what he was dealing with, he began testing everyone on the ship for the plague. It turned out that all of the Stunticons were infected, as were Vortex and Thrust. "And I can't really do anything for the ones who are infected, aside from treating their symptoms," Hook had told Lord Megatron after giving him the results. "This isn't like the other, more common rusts we usually see. It's different, more dangerous. It advances more quickly, and affects the protoform in a way that other rusts don't. It'll take us weeks to come up with a solution for it, even with Mixmaster's help. All I can do for the infected mechs is try to make sure they don't crumble into a pile of rust while we wait for a solution."

"Well, make it fast," Lord Megatron grumbled. "I need my troops to be fighting fit for our next encounter with the Autobots."

The next day, Blot went to medical with a spot of rust on his arm.

"Blot tested negative two days ago. He's positive today," Hook said. He was making sure to stand far back from Megatron, and slid a datapad with the results across the console towards their leader. "Either he picked it up from somewhere between when I tested him and today, or mechs can be infected and there's no way to tell. The only way to slow this down to give my team a chance to come up with a cure or a preventative is to keep everyone away from one another. At least three meters should do it," Hook said.

Lord Megatron glowered at Hook. "We are on a cramped spaceship at the bottom of an ocean on an alien world," he said. "How do you propose we keep our distance?"

"Confine everyone to quarters." Hook stood straight and tall and managed to meet Megatron's gaze without flinching. "And keep them there until we manage to come up with a solution."

"Preposterous." Megatron scoffed. He peered at the datapad, but Soundwave noted that he did not touch it. "That would cripple our efforts to conquer this world. Surely there's another solution."

"The rust is transmitted through touch. Or by touching something that an infected mech touched." Hook gestured around, indicating the bridge. "Who all touched the energon dispenser you used this morning? Or the door into your office? Or that console you're leaning against?" To his credit, Hook did not react when Megatron quickly stood up straight so that he wasn't touching the console. "The spores could be anywhere. The only way to stop the spread is to keep everyone from interacting."

"For how long?" Megatron growled.

"Until we beat it," Hook said simply. 

The order for everyone to remain in their quarters was not popular, but it was followed. It helped that Lord Megatron added "Upon pain of death" to the order; that usually got results.

The Constructicons were sequestered in the medical bay while Hook and Mixmaster worked on a prevention or a cure for the disease. Starscream and Shockwave provided assistance from their locations. Soundwave assumed that giving Starscream something to do was the only thing that was keeping him from killing his trine (or from them killing him instead). Meanwhile Shockwave scoured the databases on Cybertron to provide any historical data he could find on other, ancient strains of rust.

And while the scientists worked, the rest of the Decepticons waited in their quarters, trying to find ways to pass the time.

The ship-wide comm systems had been put to good use just to keep mechs from succumbing to boredom. Thundercracker had organized a trivia night. Swindle cobbled together a remotely-played version of _The Price is Right_. Drag Strip, who was still slowly recovering from his infection, set up competitions using the primitive racing games the humans played.

Everyone was making do, as best they could.

Soundwave busied himself with ensuring that the quarantine order was being kept. So far, so good: Megatron's order was holding. As time went on, however, Soundwave anticipated that mechs would begin looking for ways to slip out undetected. As Hook explained, that could cause problems for the entire crew. Three days after everyone was quarantined, Blitzwing called the medical bay complaining about stiff joints. Sure enough, he had come down with the infection as well, despite staying in his quarters. "It's a good thing he stayed in there," said Hook after he reported the new case to Command via video link. "He was probably infected before we all went into isolation. Who knows how many other crew members he might have infected if he hadn't been confined to quarters."

And so everyone stayed in.

In addition to monitoring what the Decepticons were doing, Soundwave stayed attuned to the Autobot's usual frequencies and locations. Curiously, a few days after the Decepticons went into their self-imposed isolation, the Autobots simply stopped going out in public. All of the known Autobot appearances at human events were cancelled for "unforeseen circumstances." Every known Autobot patrol route went undriven. And there was no chatter, encrypted or otherwise, over the frequencies the Autobots used.

It appeared that the Autobots had been touched by the same affliction that the Decepticons had been.

Soundwave would have loved to be able to send Ravage or Laserbeak to spy on the Autobots just to see exactly what was going on in the Ark, but... He simply couldn't risk it. It was too dangerous, and the intelligence would not have been worth it. He needed to keep his cassettes safe.

So they all stayed in Soundwave's quarters together. ...Quarters that seemed smaller with every passing day.

"Look, you must be done with that one. You've had it for over an hour already!"

"Shove off, ya blue bolthead. I'm still readin' it!"

This time, Soundwave paused and pulled a deep vent before turning around in his chair. When he looked, Frenzy was pulling on the datapad that Rumble was holding, while Rumble was punching Frenzy in the shoulder in an attempt to make him let go of it. From their perches above the door, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw peered down at the two small mechs on the floor, their optics gleaming with interest. Soundwave gave silent thanks to Primus that the two avianbots had finally settled their differences over who got what perch. Meanwhile, on the berth, Ravage was curled into a disinterested ball, apparently in recharge.

In other words, everything was looking like it had for the past two weeks.

"Rumble. Frenzy."

Once again the two cassettes froze and looked at Soundwave. Without another word they shoved apart, scooting a slight distance away from each other on the floor. "Sorry, boss," said Frenzy.

"Yeah, sorry," said Rumble. He looked down at the datapad in his hand, and then shrugged. "I guess you can read this one now," he said, and handed it to Frenzy.

Frenzy took the datapad, looked at it, and then handed it back to Rumble. "Naw, it's ok," he said. "Go ahead and finish it. I'll find something else to read, I guess."

Neither cassette looked very happy at all.

Soundwave watched his cassettes for another moment. They had been in here for a **long** time, and had quickly exhausted all of the usual recreation activities they could do inside their quarters. The cassettes had very little interest in the games that Thundercracker or Swindle had set up, and Drag Strip only ran his video games when he was feeling well enough to manage it. None of the other Decepticons really liked talking to the cassettes, finding them too rambunctious to have a serious conversation with. And most of the cassettes had quickly tired of the Primes and Drones game that Soundwave had appropriated from the rec room just as the quarantine officially started, although Laserbeak and Buzzsaw occasionally still set up scenarios to play through together.

His cassettes were bored. Soundwave didn't blame them.

Soundwave drummed his fingers on his knee for a moment, considering. Surely, if Rumble and Frenzy were this bored, there were other mechs who would be in the same situation... Mechs who might be willing to chat with them.

"Rumble. Frenzy." When he had their attention again, Soundwave held up a finger. "Boredom: acknowledged. Soundwave: will set up video chat for you."

"With who?" Frenzy whined. "No one ever wants to chat with us."

"Yeah," chimed Rumble. "And no offense, but we really don't want to talk to Brawl again. He's creepy."

Without another word, Soundwave turned back to his console and opened a new window. He triple-encoded it, layered it behind several sub-connections, bounced it off of one of the Soviet Union's satellites, and then pinged a frequency he hadn't used since the war began.

Thirty seconds passed. Then the image in the window fuzzed into clarity at the same time there was a blare of sound.

"C'mon you guys, hold it down! I've got an incoming call!" The red blur in the window resolved itself into an arm that was lowered, then a white face with blue optics. "Blaster here, what can I do for-" Then he stopped, his optics going wide. "Soundwave!"

"Blaster." Soundwave nodded once. "Query: Autobots are in isolation? Quarantine?"

Blaster's optics narrowed slightly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

From off-camera, an outraged voice yelled, "Blaster! Rewind just flattened my football again!"

Another voice replied, its tone just as furious. "I **told** you that's what would happen if you didn't stop bouncing it against the wall over my helm!"

Blaster covered the camera with a hand, but Soundwave could still see enough to tell that Blaster had turned around to look behind him. "I said knock it off, you guys! I'm serious. I'll deal with that in a minute!" Then Blaster lowered his hand and looked into the camera. "Look Soundwave, this isn't a good time, and-"

"Soundwave: will be forthcoming. Decepticons: under same situation." Soundwave waited as Blaster processed that. When Blaster's optics widened, Soundwave went on. "Cassettes: bored. Lacking stimulation. Need distraction."

Blaster leaned back from the camera, his wariness slowly fading from his expression. "What did you have in mind?" he asked.

"Cassettes: chat via video link. Need distraction so Soundwave can work." Soundwave leaned forward, and lowered his voice so that only Blaster would have been able to hear. "Soundwave's patience: depleted."

Blaster said nothing for almost a minute, long enough that Soundwave thought he might refuse the offer. But then the other host mech nodded, and a small smile lifted the corners of his lips. "Yeah. Yeah, that would work just fine. I think we're both in the same boat here, as the humans put it." Blaster turned around again, and Soundwave caught sight of the interior of Blaster's quarters. Debris and toys and datapads were strewn everywhere. Ramhorn trotted past, intent on some unseen mission, while in the background Steeljaw was curled up in much the same way Ravage currently was. "Hey, Eject, Rewind. How would ya like to spend some time talkin' with Rumble and Frenzy?"

"Whatcha doin' boss?" Soundwave turned to see Rumble standing at his elbow, peering at the video screen.

"Soundwave: setting up a... chat date for you," Soundwave said. He looked back down at the screen to see Eject and Rewind peering into the camera. "Soundwave: will send this window to your entertainment unit."

"All right," Frenzy said, his voice sounding uncertain but eager at the same time. "I guess we can show those Autobums a thing or two about the X-Men."

"Have you read the latest issue?" Rewind asked eagerly.

Soundwave flicked the video chat over to the twin's entertainment screen. Frenzy and Rumble immediately settled in front of it, both of them sifting through their stacks of datapads while eagerly chatting about comics and the most recent boxing match that had been aired on the human television networks.

Soundwave turned back to his work console, pleased that the raucous yelling he'd endured for the past few days had finally faded to a happy murmur of chatter. He had just started his scans again when he received a ping from a known frequency.

He opened the message, and nodded when he read its contents:

"Thanks, Soundwave. You are a slagging lifesaver. Stay safe, my mech."

Soundwave hesitated, then sent back a reply:

"Blaster: remain healthy. Blaster: welcome."

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, please consider sharing it on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/pipermca/status/1244063594754572290), [Tumblr](https://pipermca.tumblr.com/post/613881561578897408/quarantined), or [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1172150)!


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